Puslapio vaizdai
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Nor deem the irrevocable Past,
As wholly wasted, wholly vain,

SAINT AUGUSTINE! well hast thou said, If, rising on its wrecks, at last That of our vices we can frame

A ladder, if we will but tread

Beneath our feet each deed of shame!

All common things, each day's events,
That with the hour begin and end,
Our pleasures and our discontents,
Are rounds by which we may ascend.

The low desire, the base design,

That makes another's virtues less; The revel of the ruddy wine,

And all occasions of excess;

The longing for ignoble things;

The strife for triumph more than truth; The hardening of the heart, that brings Irreverence for the dreams of youth;

All thoughts of ill; all evil deeds,
That have their root in thoughts of ill;
Whatever hinders or impedes

The action of the nobler will;

All these must first be trampled down Beneath our feet, if we would gain In the bright fields of fair renown

The right of eminent domain.

We have not wings, we cannot soar;
But we have feet to scale and climb
By slow degrees, by more and more,
The cloudy summits of our time.

The mighty pyramids of stone
That wedge-like cleave the desert airs,
When nearer seen, and better known,
Are but gigantic flights of stairs.
The distant mountains, that uprear
Their solid bastions to the skies,
Are crossed by pathways, that appear
As we to higher levels rise.

The heights by great men reached and kept

Were not attained by sudden flight, But they, while their companions slept, Were toiling upward in the night.

To something nobler we attain.

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A MIST was driving down the British For in the night, unseen, a single warChannel,

The day was just begun,

rior,

In sombre harness mailed,

And through the window-panes, on floor Dreaded of man, and surnamed the De

and panel,

Streamed the red autumn sun.

It glanced on flowing flag and rippling

pennon,

And the white sails of ships;

stroyer,

The rampart wall had scaled.

He passed into the chamber of the sleeper,

The dark and silent room,

And, from the frowning rampart, the And as he entered, darker grew, and

black cannon

Hailed it with feverish lips.

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deeper,

The silence and the gloom.

He did not pause to parley or dissemble, But smote the Warden hoar;

Ah! what a blow! that made all England tremble

And groan from shore to shore.

Meanwhile, without, the surly cannon waited,

The sun rose bright o'erhead; Nothing in Nature's aspect intimated That a great man was dead.

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